Legacy Matters
I am upset to think how many people believe what Cindy Sheehan wrote about how the government returned her dead son Casey in a cardboard box.
The reality is the Armed Forces take extraordinary care and respect in carrying the fallen back home and into the care of their families. For the next couple of posts, I will post excerpts from Final Salute by Jim Sheeler in the Rocky Mountain News. His feature won the 2006 Pulitzer prize "for his poignant story on a Marine major who helps the families of comrades killed in Iraq cope with their loss and honor their sacrifice."
Photograph by Todd Heisler, Rocky Mountain News
As jet engines roared around him, Beck looked at the plane. The Marines marched to the cargo hold, toward the casket.
"See the people in the windows? They'll sit right there in the plane, watching those Marines," Beck said. "You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home."
Commercial airplanes transport caskets every day - including service members killed in action. For the most part, the passengers have no idea what lies below.
Most people will never see the Transportation Security Administration officials standing on the tarmac with their hands over their hearts as a body is unloaded. They won't see the airport police and firefighters lined up alongside their cars and engines, lights flashing, saluting the hearse on its way out.
Occasionally, a planeload of passengers is briefly exposed to the hard reality outside the cabin.
"They're going to remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives," Beck said, looking back at the passengers. "They're going to remember bringing that Marine home.
"And they should."
Posted by Jill Fallon at April 20, 2006 2:57 PM | Permalink